Everything about Kamerlingh Onnes totally explained
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (
September 21,
1853 –
February 21,
1926) was a
Dutch physicist. His scientific career was spent exploring extremely cold
refrigeration techniques and the associated
phenomena.
Biography
Early years
Kamerlingh Onnes was born in
Groningen,
Netherlands. His father, Harm Kamerlingh Onnes, was a brickworks owner. His mother was Anna Gerdina Coers of Arnhem.
In
1870, Kamerlingh Onnes attended the
University of Groningen. He studied under
Robert Bunsen and
Gustav Kirchhoff at the
University of Heidelberg from
1871 to
1873. Again at Groningen, he obtained his masters in
1878 and a doctorate in
1879. His thesis was "Nieuwe bewijzen voor de aswenteling der aarde" (
tr. New proofs of the rotation of the earth). From 1878 to 1882 he was assistant to
Johannes Bosscha, the director of the Polytechnic in
Delft, for whom he substituted as lecturer in 1881 and 1882.
From 1882 to 1923 Kamerlingh Onnes served as professor of
experimental physics at the
University of Leiden. In
1904 he founded a very large
cryogenics laboratory and invited other researchers to the location, which made him highly regarded in the scientific community. In
1908, he was the first physicist to liquify
helium, using
cryostats. Using the
Joule-Thomson effect, he lowered the temperature to less than one degree above
absolute zero, reaching 0.9 K. At the time this was the
coldest temperature achieved on earth. The original equipment is at the
Boerhaave Museum in
Leiden.
He was married to Maria Adriana Wilhelmina Elisabeth Bijleveld (m. 1887) and had a child named Albert.
Superconductivity
Kamerlingh Onnes conducted (in
1911) electrical analysis of pure metals (
mercury,
tin and
lead) at very low temperatures. Some, such as
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), believed that
electrons flowing through a
conductor would come to a complete halt or, in other words, metal resisitivity will become infinity at absolute zero. Others, including Kamerlingh Onnes, felt that a conductor's
electrical resistance would steadily decrease and drop to nil. Augustus Matthiessen (1831-1870, FRS 1861) pointed out when the temperature decreases, the metal conductivity usually improves or in other words, the electrical resisitivy usually decreases with temperature. (Ref: A. Matthiessen, Philosophical Transactions 1862 and also Philosophical Transactions 1864.) At 4.2
kelvin the resistance was zero according to the observation of Kamerlingh Onnes and his co-workers. The drop to zero was experimentally observed to be abrupt. Kamerlingh Onnes stated that the "
Mercury has passed into a new state, which on account of its extraordinary electrical properties may be called the superconductive state". He published more articles about the phenomenon, initially referring to it as "
supraconductivity" and, only later adopting the term "superconductivity".
Kamerlingh Onnes received widespread recognition for his work, including the
1913 Nobel Prize in Physics for (in the words of the committee) "
his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium".
Death and afterwards
Kamerlingh Onnes died in
Leiden. Some of the instruments he devised for his experiments can still be seen at the
Boerhaave Museum in Leiden. The apparatus he used to first liquefy helium is on display in the lobby of the physics department at
Leiden University, where the low temperature lab is also named in his honor. His student and successor as director of the lab
Willem Hendrik Keesom was the first person who was able to solidify helium, in
1926.
The
Onnes-effect referring to the creeping of
superfluid Helium is named in his honor.
The
Kamerlingh Onnes crater on the
Moon was named after him by the
IAU.
Awards
Publications
Kamerlingh Onnes, H., "Nieuwe bewijzen voor de aswenteling der aarde." Ph.D. dissertation. Groningen, Netherlands, 1879.
Kamerlingh Onnes, H., "Algemeene theorie der vloeistoffen." Amsterdam Akad. Verhandl. 21, 1881.
Kamerlingh Onnes, H., "On the Cryogenic Laboratory at Leyden and on the Production of Very Low Temperature." Comm. Phys. Lab. Univ. Leiden 14, 1894.
Kamerlingh Onnes, H., "Théorie générale de l'état fluide." Haarlem Arch. Neerl. 30, 1896.
Kamerlingh Onnes, H., "The Superconductivity of Mercury." Comm. Phys. Lab. Univ. Leiden, Nos. 122 and 124, 1911
Kamerlingh Onnes, H., "On the Lowest Temperature Yet Obtained." Comm. Phys. Lab. Univ. Leiden, No. 159, 1922. Further Information
Get more info on 'Kamerlingh Onnes'.
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